I just learned how to home network some of my machines through the router. Now got a wired Win7 with a wired XP, and on one of my new Dell 6530 machines (2012 vintage, 3K new, now selling for $600 or less at dellauction).. with later wi-fi, AUTOCONNECTED tho I got that one running on XP Pro 32-bit.

Trick is, to select MANUAL installation. You create a user name for that computer, and the SSID is your router's, and the password is the router's, not some other computer on the network. The instructions do NOT make that clear.

Oh: you have to turn on the wifi network on another machine before XP can connect to it. If that network only is on the modem, no machine using it, XP cannot connect.

Oh: ignore the Windows New Hardware thingy, it can't work. Intel has its own connector and configurator.

Oh: have to have the wifi turned on when you boot. That makes the Intel thingy resident.

The trick is the hardware. That machine has an Intel wifi adaptor built in. And, it uses the faster 5G network, not stuck with the slower one. My modem is dual baud (didn't know that until it died and I got a good Comcast techie).

In the event a wireless adapter is not supported on XP or older OSes (like Windows 98), you can just run a modern host OS and run the older OSes in a VM. Then the VM translates a virtual driver to talk to the VM to translate the wireless connection.

In the event a wireless adapter is not supported on XP or older OSes (like Windows 98), you can just run a modern host OS and run the older OSes in a VM. Then the VM translates a virtual driver to talk to the VM to translate the wireless connection.

The power of virtualisation is all too often underrated. Providing the host machine is powerful enough guest operating systems can perform as well as physical installations.